Slashdot Mirror
MP3 Quickies On The Edge Of Forever
bbt wrote in to tell us about
Gnute,
Rolls wrote in to tell us about the Tabloids' Web site promoting Napster mischief, and
Jeckle shared the Washington Post article about the Canadian band, Kittie, using the web to propagate their music. I love Kittie.
Oscarfish wrote in about a fantastic "Wall Street Journal article at ZDNet reporting that Napster executives are in meetings with record label executives.
This here is a good one. KingOfBongo told us about the Economist article that suggests "...the music industry could easily build a closed commercial news distribution service superior to rogue freeware Napster."
Gnutella can use HTTP to transfer files. So the Gnute service simply provides you with URLs formed to point to the users' static IPs.
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I am the dot in slashdot.org
You are correct. The problem is that we need people topush technology away from things which the RIAA can control, i.e. Napster and mp3.com. I have a few ideas:
(1) Freeware music distribution programs like Gnutella, but that can DL Napster file. These programs should not share file to Napster, just search Napster for files to DL.
(2) More agressive free music distribution systems for non-industry bands. Example: You sing up to recieve an mp3 from some random band in your email every day. the email would contain various information about the band (like how to order their CDs and/or how to support them).
(3) Add an HTML option to mp3 tags, i.e. the players would have a little button whhich the user could push to launch a web page. This web page would contain information about the artist, song lyrics, begging for people to give the artist money, and advertising (if the artist would want to sell advertising in their songs).
Anyway, the point is we just need to make it easy for people to abandon the industry and go directly to the artist.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
no, i'm pretty sure that slashdotters are hypocritical pirates.
stealing music is stealing music (oh dont even fucking bother... its not REALLY stealing.. its 'unauthorized distribution of copyrighted intellectual property'). true, the industry probably needs to exploit this new frontier and not outlaw it and fuck themselves over... but just plain old copyright infringement isnt any sort of solution.
so yeah, the industry is fucking up... but oh well, its not my loss, but that doesnt make pirated mp3's 'ok'.
the real shiftaling has user number 5134
Karma: -43 and DROPPING!!!
Yea, god forbid you have to actually pay for your music...
It is, in fact, not true that there were no indie labels in the 50s and 60s. Starting after World War II, there was an explosion of artist-run and -owned record labels, including Charles Mingus' Debut and others, notably Atlantic, which began as a small west Coast jazz label. Many of these died, but some remained, and there was another, similar flowering in the 1950s. Also, there were several indie rock labels in the 60s. However, you were right that the original poster was a moron.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
Of course the obvious problem: ISPs have to carry the usenet channel which doesn't really seem viable in the long run either. Now they would be holding all the traffic downloaded, plus the RIAA would be after them to stop carrying the usenet channels.
It seems like it would cause too many problems... likely why it isn't already widely used (at least with my ISP there are not alt.mp3.* channels).
-rt-
-rt-
** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
There are those who steal because they want something for nothing. Then there are those who believe in using copyright as it was meant to be used, not to protect the bottom line of IP Cartels.
it's green.
mp3s suck anyway, i download all my files in SHN without the help of napster. i don't owe shit to em. good is stretchin a bit to. what has napster done that is good? not that they do bad things, i just don't see why they are beneficent an all.
It seems that the major labels have finally stumbled upon a clue. Instead of spending money to litigate, which doesn't generate profits - just bad press, they are pursuing the advantages of the new medium. This is to be applauded. It means better quality MP3s(or whatever) and it means that the artist continues to get paid.
What we have now is piracy on the high seas, and noone really benefits from that kind of environment. It cannot sustain itself. There is no question that the paradigm has shifted, and the conventional distribution model is no longer the only game in town. The Labels are going to lose some control over distibution, and that is good.
But what is happening now cannot continue, or we will find that the noise will grow independent of the signal. That would be bad for us, but worse for artists. Ask any college band how hard it is to get noticed now. Imagine what happens when they are competing against the entirity of the internet. For all of thier bad behavior, the labels act as a reasonable filter and keep the noise down and make it easier to find recordings of the music that matters to you.
I agree that there are many lowlifes in the record industry. It's important to recognize that those lowlifes have nothing on an artist until said artist signs on the line. The artist is complicit in the whole arrangement and as much to blame as the labels for the culture that pervades the music industry.
When you're in bed with the Devil, the Devil is not sleeping alone.
I think those that fail to realize this have an unrealistic expectation of fairness in a world that is inherently unfair. It's just as impossible to legislate good sense on the part of the artist as it would be for the labels to contain the MP3 Djinn.
Toodles,
Nephs
Read some of the articles here.
There will always be criminals, and this does not apply to people who just want to steal something to get a free ride, but rather to the people who believe what's right about copyright.
it's green.
Gentlemen, we fought this fight in radio decades ago.
The result? The recording industry lost all their lawsuits to prevent people from playing songs on the air, and got small royalties.
So Napster will end up paying a token fee to the record companies, and just like cassette-taping off the radio helped artists in the past, mp3s will continue to help artists in the future.
It's a win. As long as Napster gets to carry all the music and makes enough profit to stay in business, it's an effing win.
--
P.S. Why do cassette tapes cost less than CD's? They cost more to manufacture!
What is really needed is something half way between Napster and the established music industry.
There was actually a really interesting thread on /. a few days ago, it never made it to the front page and now has about 15 comments...
It is about an article by Courtney Love (worth reading) on Salon . From what she says it sounds like pretty much anything would be better than the current Music Biz...
~ppppppppö
You're just making excuses for listening to the music you want to hear, you're not listing the alternatives to listening to music.
Like all the other napster fans you're obsessed with having whatever music you want without having to pay for it. Not having music simply doesn't seem to be a choice primarily, I think, because of the sense of entitlement people seem to have. Recorded music seems to be a right, not a privilege.
What's more shocking is that people are so up in arms about CDs being too expensive but nobody seems to give a damn about going to the doctor being too expensive; I guess it's the naivete of youth.
1) With the rise of MP3 sharing programs like Napster and Gnutella, labels and bands are worried about losing control of their music. Metallica and Dr Dre are the two most prominent critics. Others, like Limp Bizkit and Chuck D are very much in favor of Napster and its ilk. I was wondering how the members of Fugazi felt about the rise of MP3 music. Do you support the trading of songs? Any reservations about it?
1.re: napster, MP3's etc. ---we don't have any real strong feelings about it mainly because we are kind of low tech - as far as i'm concerned, i'm glad people have access to the music. to me its like radio freed from the dictatorship of the programmers - as far as trading files, to us its just like trading tapes - as long as people aren't trying to profit off it its totally cool with us.
Having read numerous articles on the subject, I see repeated that many bands and labels claim that CDs cost $16 because running a record label is very expensive. I believe Lars Ulrich of Metallica stated, "For every one successful band, you have nine that flop and cost the record company a lot of money." Yet bands like Fugazi and the Dischord label can sell CDs for less than $10, and are apparently very successful. What makes Dischord able to sell a Fugazi CD so inexpensively, when I have to shell out $16 for the latest pop album? Are the labels lying to conceal a huge profit-making machine, or are the dynamics different between a small indie label and a larger corporate one.
majors are into profit maximization - that is not our primary concern. we want to make our music accessible to as many people as possible, thus the low price. making a CD costs about $2 so you can do the math to figure out the degree to which the majors are gouging people to pay off all their bloated CEOs, promotion budgets, and inflated production costs.
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
They could change it to 10 seconds of Eminem... I believe the law allows for up to 10 seconds of sampling legally.
I have pulled about 8 full jerry goldsmith albums from napster, the oldest one is out of print and used goes up to $120 (really, it's "Under Fire") Go try to find even one complete goldsmith album in newsgroup, lamer.
/_____\. .......|
(for the record, I have 2 real goldsmith cds and plan to buy 3 more. That's all I plan do as a student. I don't care whatever justification napster users have come up with, nobody can afford a some what complete goldsmith collection!)
CY
vvvvvvv../|__/|
...I../O,O....|
...I./
..J|/^.^.^ \..|.._//|
...|^.^.^.^.|W|./oo.|
You've mistaken me for someone else. I don't have gigabytes of MP3s that I've hoarded from around the world. I've got maybe 10 or 20, about half of which I intend to delete because I don't like them.
I only download MP3's of songs I'm genuinely interested in purchasing, provided I like them, or for which I've been unable to find the physical media for. For instance, I've recently developed a taste for Devo, and (if I can find them in stores these days), I'll likely be purchasing their work. On top of that, I have several tracks off of the NIN/David Bowie collaboration "The Odd Couple" which I haven't been able to find in stores ANYWHERE. (Where can I get all of the remixes of "I'm Afraid of Americans"? I don't like the MP3s -- I want the CD, but I can't have it becuase nobody is willing to sell it to me because it's not popular enough to carry the overblown price tag they want to put on it.)
More to the point, though, I was NOT trying to justify copyright infringement. Rather, I was trying to point out why things are the way they are (CDs are too expensive and choice is unduly restricted due to an overreaching copyright monopoly and a naturally inflexible demand).
If copyright worked the way it's supposed to work, (namely, limited copyright term) I should be able to purchase Devo CDs from the late 70s from anybody that cares to press them. But, due to the huge term assigned to copyright these days, even my great-grandchildren may not be able to do so. They'll have to rely on whichever company which owns the rights to Devo's music and their own desires for pressing albums. And in the meantime, I'll have to pay the same retail price for Devo albums today that I'd pay for current artists, because that's the way monopolistic pricing works. There's "one price", and if demand is zero at that price, no units ship.
I think a big step forward would be to add an "untended works" clause to copyright, which would put any work which is not actively being commercially exploited for a certain period of time into the public domain. That would make the classic gaming community happy, as well as purveyors of less-than-mainstream works, as many of these works that are currently "lost" due to copyright issues would then fall into the public domain.
Still, the term on copyright is far too long. It should be no longer than about 20 years, tops. Long copyrights deter advancement of the art, and encourage corporate recycling.
Bringing up health-care in a forum that's discussing copyright is a non-sequitor. I personally have health insurance, and I'm young and healthy. So, I naturally don't need to worry as much. Nonetheless, this isn't the discussion for it.
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
The industry associations love to call people theives and pirates whenever things don't go their way. They liken all Napster users to theives in spite of a Supreme Court ruling that says infringement is not theft. Infrigers doesn't strike as much fear in the hearts of the many, I guess.
I'd like to take this opportunity to point out the similarities between the industry associations and the Nazis. They both have the law on their side, mostly because they induced the implementation of the law, as opposed to any real correctness in the law. They both grant special places to certain "blessed" groups of people (Nazis chose Aryans, {MP,RI}AA chooses individuals with strong ignorant consumerish traits). They both seek to destroy anyone else (Nazis by extermination, AAs by making everyone a "good consumer").
Ok, maybe on it's own merits, it's not fair to call the MPAA and the RIAA Nazis. On the other hand, they're calling a lot of people theives who haven't (as defined by law and court ruling) stolen anything.
I like to play children's songs in minor keys.
"We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
Alright, I like the free distribution of music. I use it for good and responsibly, and I am disgusted with the mentality that we have to live life by the lowest common denominator: People who pirate music that they would have otherwise bought. In society, this happens in a lot of circumstances. We need traffic lights because we would all demand the right of way. We have to wait in line to buy food because we can't trust anyone to throw the correct amount of money into a basket. This is the motherfucking Internet, and there is an ever expanding amount of people who find their way to download mp3s. If we lived our life by the lowest common denominator, we'd be living a lot lower than we would in our society, as our homeland cultures don't define the status quo here. Having said all that shit, I feel I must point out an interesting way to damage people who pirate mp3s, though I hope it doesn't happen. If people recorded mp3s at 5% of what it would take for the audio to get clipped (max volume), people who play the music would turn up their speakers to listen to the mp3. With the song being 85% done, crank up the volume in your mp3 to 100%. This will blow people's eardrums, headphones and speakers up and out. Of course, this would only exist in an arms race situation, because software would start checking for big jumps in volume, and warn users after they've downloaded the file. Come to think of it, do mp3s have a footer in the file spec? It would be pretty good to be able to tell if a file is chopped off. It seems Napster is falling victim to mp3s devolving to the point where they're uselessly short with the ends cut off, as the downloads get cut short. Bottom line is, mp3s shouldn't play properly, or you should be able to check for the existence of a footer to tell if your mp3 is cut off.
what is that page? an http-to-gnutella portal? half the links dont do anything useful, so its mostly indecipherable to me.
i think the real fun is in a somewhat different direction... build a distributed database like napster or gnutella, but with all the scaling issues fixed, automatic mirroring and indexing... and then start replacing http as a transport for content that doesnt change (not just static, but also never needs to be updated). replace everything from the latest kernel tarball to the gifs that make up the window dressing with queries that go to a local mirror, and maybe automatically version and mirror the rest... would certainly help avoid the "slashdot effect".
...but now im offtopic and in my own unimplemented pipe-dream.
Java: the COBOL of the new millenium.
Media inforcer finds the IP address of the users on Napster, based on the name of the files they are sharing. I don't know if NetPD does that or just reports the Napster username.
--
EHC
Time to check some facts.
Napster is not publicly traded and does not have stockholders to answer to. If they did, this saga would have ended a long, long time before they had multiple, concurrent lawsuits piling up.
In Microsoft terms, RIAA is not playing "embrace and extend." Apparently you do not understand the meaning of that phrase, which refers to Microsoft's repeated obfuscation of open standards into proprietary ones which work with only Microsoft products. How you got that out of the RIAA situation is beyond me. All the pot in Mexico couldn't help me find a link between the two.
Wireless TCP/IP is an oxymoron, considering that wireless would seem to pertain to an entirely different layer of the OSI model (e.g.: one) than the TCP/IP suite. I'm still struggling to make the connection between TCP/IP radios, "pirate" radio (which, by the way, was basically legalized at the beginning of this year by that same pesky, greedy FCC that you speak so highly of), and government censorship. Again, it ain't happening.
Again with your "anti-trust" rant we see that you have little to no factual knowledge of the subject matter about which you are writing. The Big 5 record labels that are RIAA have existed for half a century without government prodding - and that harkens back to the 50s and 60s when there were literally no indie labels to speak of and they owned every avenue to distribute and publicize music available. If anything, the climate has gotten more competitive over the years, not less. All history aside, I fail to see how cooperating with Napster, RIAA, Napster and RIAA, Napster, RIAA, CuteMX, iMesh, and Scour combined would net them any sort of anti-trust violation. Perhaps you could elaborate more.
I guess what really annoys me about this post is how it got moderated up to 4 (and probably 5) for basically taking a bunch of buzzwords - "embrace and extend", "wireless TCP/IP" - injecting a healthy dose of anti-government sentiment, capitalizing some random and stigmatized words like KILL or FORCED, mixing them up, and praying for the best in terms of currying mod points.
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
cuz nobody will ever read this.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
His response? "I'm rich, what do I care?"
Sure hope none of his record company's execs were watching.....
You suck! I download music only from bands who give express permission. I respect peoples right to own thier recordings if they so choose. Your proof that some people are ignorant, assuming bastards whose own conscience leads them to think that the because you can do thing something like steal with something you will. Every one deserves to be considered on a case by case basis. Lumping people into groups and deriding them is a form of deception used by people who are scared cowards not willing to address the complexities of real life and issues. The assumption that if you're for non-commercial software or napster than you must be for piracy and theft is grossly simplistic and wrong because, although there are many people who do meet these criterion, many people for open-source or napster don't steal or pirate software and aren't trying to procure the right for others to steal or thieve. Dumb over simplistic statements such as yours encourage people to think that all people who are enthused by open sourced software products own illegal copies of proprietary software. Not true, but thanx for expressing your ignorance :-)
I have worked both in the traditional music industry (studio engineering, live production, and concert promotion) and in the Internet music realm. The music industry is very slow to change, this is painfully clear. Like any large industry, it looks after itsself and its own intrests.
:)
As soon as a good economic model pops up behind the distribution of music (books, movies, etc) the traditional companies that have dominated the realm will still be the big players. They will adapt. Aside from the front line runners (currently the 'bad boys' of the new music world) like mp3.com and Napster, all the other companies entering in the realm are aligning themselves with the traditional music companies and preparing for an all out assault on the market. Expecially in the not-yet-born wireless market.
Check out companies like http://www.mongomusic.com, look at who their investors are. Its pretty damn clear were this industry is going to go. mp3 lockers, subscription services, the empasis on streaming, etc..
Art has never been free, and I don't see career/full-time/whatever artists giving away their music anytime soon. Music outlets are just going to use a subscription model to pump music into your house, car, and that headphone jack that will find its way into the next generation of digital cell phones.
The record companies are pretty much just banks that fund artists. And that is not going to change, just evolve.
Another thing: One of the really great things about music on the Internet and some of the new searching technology is that its going to be alot easier to break new bands. Hence, there will be more music readily available that normally was very 'underground'.. Being that smaller artists don't make crap off record sales until they get to a certain size, I think that this will result in more of an emphasis on live preformance. If anything, this will be the best result for the bands. Bands, with both small and large following, make most of their cash off touring. I hope this translates into more 'alive' local music scenes, more shows, and rave going on every weekend.
Companies like Napster and mp3.com are giving the industry a good kick in the ass right now. Their reaction will move out of the courts and into the market place shortly. They will figure it out. They will learn how to make money in the information age. They are NOT going to go away. . . .
. . . as much as we would like them to.
...
. ""The future masters of technology will have to be lighthearted and
. intelligent. The machine easily masters the grim and the dumb."
- My Blog - http://www.memestreams.net/users/rattle/
I'd like to see some supply/demand curves backing up his statement (and yes "simple" ones will suffice). If CD's are selling efficientally at their current price how come there is sooo much surplus?
Its like there are people that buy MS-Office (I've never seen one...) even though it costs 400$ - does that mean its selling at market equilibrium? No - in fact I don't know anyone in my circle that has a legit copy of it. And another question - why is there such a huge black market for pirated copies of MS-Office and MP3's? Because their too expensive for some people.
Skuld.
I see a lot of (justified) bitching on Slashdot about people who just don't get it but hardly any support for the people who do get it.
So I'd like to throw a link out to the people at emusic who do get it. Music by well known artists, at a reasonable price, in the lovely non-proprietary mp3 format. These guys rock and deserve our support. Come on Slashdotters, put your money where your mouth is!
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Pretty sure whoever submitted the trymedia link didn't read the "mandatory webuse agreement"... It's hilarious, but my favorite bit is
System Integrity
You may not take any action which imposes an unreasonable or disporportionately large load on the Site or Trymedia Systems' infrastructure.
Um, does that mean slashdotting is a no-no?:}
All four people who choose to do this will be equally recognizable :) I've found that people who share their collections are like anyone else- they're proud of their collections, and can't bear corruption. And they far outnumber the saboteurs- who, while they are amusing, are unlikely to gain full share.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
And another thing - did anyone notice during the 80's that when CD's came out they were more expensive then tapes? Its funny - count the number of moving parts in a tape - they have to cost more to manufacture then a CD. I mean I can make a CD at home for as low as .75$ - you'd think an industrial plant could make them for cheaper (I read in Popular Mechanics a while back that they cost less then .05$ per disk actually).
Simple economic theory teaches me that this is a scam.
Skuld.
I'd vote to have that post moderated up. /.er who didn't know about emuisc. According to the FAQ, the artists get 50%
I can't be the only
(Hopefully tha means the _actual_ artists, and doesn't include a bunch of middlemen).
Real Player was presented as a secure way to deliver music but someone hacked it.
Yes Real Networks sued but that changes nothing. The method is now public. It should be a minnor effort for a cracker to do it again.
Enter Napster. Belive it or not.. attempt number 2. Before it even got off the ground someone figured out how the stream worked and made a clone.
The process isn't that hard. Just set up a BSD box and have it record everything that passes between the Windows box and the network.
(Yeah I know Linux can do the job but I've become accustum to BSD boxes as firewalls.. they do the job so well.. and this is just a small modification to a firewall).
With some hacking you can not only replicate the client but the server as well.
All just by observing the data stream.
And now you have a Napster nockoff...
What next...
Well the music industry seems to think they can do it.
Let me point out that Real Networks and Napster did this with a larg base of knowladge behind them. They knew the history of streaming media. CU-SeeMe... Ztalk and all the wonderful Unix radio and voice IP clients. Most open sourced.
They didn't work in the dark...
And they couldn't come up with anything...
Now the music industry thinks they can pull this off. Not knowing a thing about all the protocals that came before. Not knowing a thing about what it took to crack thies protocals.
Entirely in the dark. Compleatly ignorent.
They might pull it off.
But I sereously doupt it...
Cracking this.. I doupt it would even be a challange for a cryptophile...
I don't actually exist.
The only legal MP3s I could find I found on Napster. .wav format not mp3
And my CDripper outputs to
I don't actually exist.
Michael Robertson (510) 428-9866
michael@thetabloids.com
Don't forget to tell his wife Tracy hello when you call.
You can argue all you want about how copyright sucks; I agree, I think that Big Music, Inc, a subsidiary of Big Money, Inc. isn't interested in competition and wants a long-term monopoly on anything and everthing.
/only/ choice.
What you fail to address, though, is the part of the napster debate I'm mystified by: where is it written that you have to have freakin' recorded music AT ALL? If you don't like the game the record companies are playing, don't play it at all. Why isn't "I gave up on music because the music industry sucks" considered to be a legitimate choice in this debate? It seems to be "the music industry sucks, therefore I'll steal from them" is the
No one is arguing with your analysis of the music biz or the copyright situation; my argument is with the idea that stealing is a valid alternative but not participating in the music industry somehow seems to not be, primarily due to the sense of entitlement that people have. You don't need music any more than you need beer.
Bringing up healthcare is totally legitimate; I'm mentioning it because the zealousness of MP3 advocates seems entirely misplaced; put your energy into a cause that has real benefit, not one that only serves your selfish desires.
Its pathetic that you mark this as a troll because I said BSD is better than Linux. Have you even used BSD you horrible moderator? Also, please tel me your definition of a troll.
would be Travis, who won Best New Band and Best Album at the Brit Awards and who are just now breaking into the States. The article here is full of quotes like "I don't care(about free online music distribution)," Fran(Healy, lead singer) says. "Music should be free. I don't give a damn." Hopefully more bands will take that stance, or a similar one. Online distribution didn't keep the Travis album from going platinum several times over and topping the UK charts. Just my 2 cents.
Is that Gnute better be based out of some country that the RIAA can't even pronounce, let alone have heard of, or the RIAA isn't even going to bother with police and lawyers this time. They'll nuke it from orbit - only way to be sure. But it seems like it might be located in California. Even better! A RIAA executive with a chainsaw can go over there in person.
On a technical level, the site is very interesting, and very powerful. It uses Gnutella to transfer the underlying files, and has very few graphics. What does this mean? You could practically run this site on an old amiga with a 28.8 link. All it has to do is feed it's queries to Gnutella - it only delivers the front page and formats the search page.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
Who was the research genius who thought up this brilliant earth shaking concept? Of COURSE the music industry could embrace digital distribution of their content, and because they're fuelled by so much capital, they could probably put together a really slick and well marketed system. People would flock to it.
But they haven't. They've been content with their high priced markups on CDs, and until now haven't really been pushed to do anything about that. Sure, distro channels like Napster encourage illegal distribution of copyrighted material, but legalities aside... I'm just glad it's giving the music industry a sufficient kick in the bloated backside to compel them to do something substantial in the way of innovation.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out. I'll be keeping track of the news while listening to my MP3 collection with XMMS. :^P
-DrPsycho - Coping with reality since 1975
Personally, I think that a scheme where one pays x dollars to download y songs is better. With a time limit, one month might have more releases you like than the next, so you'd waste money on months you hardly used the service. I don't think it would work on a per song basis, because then they'd just charge some inflated rate just like they do now. (Remember when they said CDs would cost less after they had been around for a few years?)
it's green.
Oscarfish wrote in about a fantastic "Wall Street Journal article at ZDNet reporting that Napster executives are in meetings with record label executives.
Finally. Instead of suing, they're trying to work out a reasonable solution (or so it seems). This should be interesting.
This here is a good one. KingOfBongo told us about the Economist article that suggests "...the music industry could easily build a closed commercial news distribution service superior to rogue freeware Napster."
A closed commercial news distribution service? Anyway, a "legal" version of Napster and of distributing MP3s would be great, but since the software would now be under the control of the RIAA et al. instead of Napster, I see a potential for price gouging or other similar abuses. For example, "Napster 2 is now out in stores! Works just like the original Napster, but uses your credit card to ensure legality! Only $59.99!" But who knows, maybe that won't happen. Time will tell...
=================================
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Well I heard about it and decided that I would just grab a 60GB hdd from computergate and search for "a".. then "b".. then "c" and go right on down the line and download a few dozen gigs of mp3's. :(
<p>Besides, the humorous part about Napster is that most music isn't shared by it - it is from college universities and mp3 servers in offices.
The hardest part about mp3's is not in finding music, it's in finding a particular song. If it isn't popular (ie, the 18-25 group) you won't find it, unless it's techno.
I don't know if this has been previously submitted but here is a transcript of a speech by a singer Courtney Love. It really changed by view on the recording industry. http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/ index.html
Oscarfish wrote in about a fantastic "Wall Street Journal article at ZDNet reporting that Napster executives are in meetings with record label executives."
Actually emusic, and mp3.com were in talks for a while as well. I believe mp3.com came up with some kind of deal.
kicking some CAD is a good thing
I don't see how Napster offers musicians anything. If I want to distribute my music for free, I don't need Napster or any other _distributed_ distribution system. I can convert my music to mp3 and put it on my web site. Fans can download freely from here, so only need distribute links rather than files among themselves. The only time when a _distributed_ distribution system is needed is when someone is trying to suppress the distribution. I.e. when I choose not to distribute my music for free.
To get out of indentured slavery all that's is needed is a way to pay the rent, studio, manager etc without charging for music - Napster does not offer this.
Um, is it just me, or is their site terribly misguided? I mean, sure, they're against Napster/MP3 trading, and I think they're wrong (speaking as a musician myself, even), but I can respect that (not that that means I'm not going to mock them and call them idiots).
First off -- uh, is it just me, or are these people trying to parrot the Major Label line so they can get signed? I mean, really -- how many of us have downloaded anything by The Tabloids. Wait, don't answer that -- how many of us have HEARD of the Tabloids. Something tells me that Tabloid-piracy isn't high up on the list of napster-users. Hell, I got bored, so I fired up Napster and did a search for "tabloids". I found two tracks. One a Dennis Miller rant, the other a Bob Rivers novelty song. Whee, they've got a lot to worry about.
Two, check out the faqs... one of them, I'll take the liberty of posting here so you don't have to go and find it:
>>>>
CD prices are too high and I don't want to pay for songs that are crappy.
Simple economic theory will tell you that CD prices are not too high because people continue to buy them at that price. The only reason that CD prices are as high as they are is that that is what the market will bear. Maybe CD prices are, in fact, too high for you personally. Sure, that sucks. But the price of a Porsche is too high for lots of people, too and even though they'd like to have one, they can't just go and take one off the showroom floor. Perhaps the argument would be effective if there were no other ways for people to listen to music, but there are. There is the radio, there are stores that sell used CDs, there are web sites that auction used CDs and legitimtate sites that allow you to download individual songs for about a buck.
>>>>
OK, read the bit about used CDs again. Um, really -- when you get down to it, isn't it MUCH worse to buy a used CD than to download an album from Napster? In both instances the labels^wartists don't get jack, but with the used CD, not only do you just get the music, you get it in CD Quality AND you get the packaging/album art. Also, with Napster, there's a CHANCE that the downloader will go and actually BUY the album (apparently this happens less often than you'd think, according to the site, though, weird -- everyone _I_ know does buy the records, if anything, to free up HD space -- but I know that you CAN'T go by anecdote when proving things, so just leave that as an aside, eh?) -- but why would anyone later buy the CD NEW if they already have it USED? Doesn't especially seem well thought out, does it?
Thirdly, isn't that cute, they seem to think that artists actually get money from making and selling records! Isn't that adorable?! I'm not going to reiterate the whole argument here, because most of you have already heard it, but if you haven't, check out "The Trouble With Music" by Steve "Record Producin' Guy Who Had a Wesley Willis Song Written About Him" Albini (BTW, the "I hate Christians" shirt the intro mentions that Negativland sells are actually "Christianity Is Stupid" shirts after the Negativland song from "Escape From Noise" -- it's not part of the original article), or that one Courtney Love thing that was adapted pretty much wholesale from Albini's rant -- Love's version can be found at Salon.com -- just poke around a bit if you haven't read it already.
Anyway, sure, think Napster's Satan or whatever, but for christ's sake, is it too much to ask for people to THINK THEIR ARGUMENTS THROUGH FIRST?! AT LEAST A LITTLE BIT?
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"Music is music, but anarchy is stupid." -- Eli Armen-Van Horn
This month, MP3.com Inc., a San Diego Internet site, reached an out-of-court settlement with two big record labels over a separate copyright suit. MP3.com agreed to pay 1.5 cents each time a user stores a song using MP3.com's service, as well as a third of a cent each time the song is listened to from the company's Web site.
Unbelievable. I've been watching the mp3.com debate for a year now. Not only did they have to pay 100 million to do this, but now they have to pay money for each stream! (And this is just for the 2 out of 5 recording companies.)
Did anyone try out Gnute.com? What a great idea! (it bombed out on my first download try, but it's probably being /.'d, or simply the person I downloaded from went offline.) Gnute.com simply hooks up a dynamic web page allowing you to practically run their gnutella software. You simply get their searches, their stats, etc pasted up to your web page. Nice.
This is great, because no matter how good Gnutella is, it just ain't going to get all the 12 year old retards on Napster to try it out, unless it gets the point & click ease of a web site. Not only that, but now even AOL users can use something this simple! Now that's a lot of sheep without a shepard!
There is one problem though! If everyone used Gnute.com instead, then there would be no files to download!
I'm curious if the download part of Gnute.com is still peer2peer/dchp, or if it's from downloadee to gnute.com to me. I'm sure it's not the latter, since that would kill gnute.com's bandwidth.
I was a little disappointed about the Tabloid's site called: stopnapster.com. I had hoped it was a joke, but they brought up too many good points for it to be a joke. I certainly hope that none of their ideas catch on (Like mp3 bombs, trojans, etc) Hopefully people would listen to what they download, and then delete it if it had anti-piracy speakers talking in it!
hehe that stopnapster.com site is hillarious. "CD sales are at an all time high. Isn't Napster actually helping recording artists? According to statistics compiled using Soundscan, an objective reporting process that measures actual retail and online sales, CD sales are up 16 percent nationally. However, the Soundscan statistics reveal that in areas near colleges and universities, where Napster is the rave, sales are off 4 percent, an effective 20 percent reversal. More than 100 colleges had to ban Napster because of constant MP3 downloads. Think there's a correlation?" They forgot to mention that purchase of cd's through the internet is more popular these days. " If Napster dies, then someone else will just come along and take their place. And those companies will ultimately be sued by the record industry as well. If the record industry is successful in their suit against Napster and wins substantial damages, then the other companies would be just plain stupid to go ahead with a business model that has proven to be illegal and would potentially cost them millions of dollars in lawsuits and settlements. Furthermore, applied to an extreme, this argument would suggest that we stop arresting people for murder because sooner or later, someone will come along and kill someone else, so what's the use?" Yep, go ahead and sue gnutella or freenet... oh wait, there's nobody to sue! ROFL, i had a good laugh reading the site. It's funny how technologically illeterate these people are (the site was done using a mac haha).
Indeed. And incidentally, wtf is an "mp3 worm"? Any idea how you'd code one of those? Is there something special about the mp3 format I don't know, or is this as meaningless as talking about a "gif worm"...or maybe a "txt worm"?
"Knowledge is the continuation of ignorance by other means"
They are not publicly traded but they do have stockfolders to answer to. Napster is a privately held company, with private stock holders (several in fact), not the least of which is a large VC (Hummer Winblad) that is Chaired by a lawyer that used to work for the record industry. Does this mean Napster will settle with the RIAA? Possibly, given that Napster is a business, it has no revenue model presently and its shareholders, the people that pay Napsters bills are going to demand, if they havent already that Napster start making some money - so they can get a return on their investment. Now, given that Napsters largest investor is a VC with connections to the record industry it stands to reason that Napster will try to work out some amicable arrangement with the labels (RIAA). Its anyones guess if it will happen. mp3.com settled for a very similiar reason: Its good for business.
So, make no mistake, Napster is a business first and last. Its not an open source project. Its not a revolution. Its a business. NApsters marketing people can say what they want. They can claim they are a revolution. They can say they are here to save the world, or whatever they want you to hear. But ultimately at the end of the day, they have to pay their employees and answer to their shareholders just like any other business.
They have no revenue stream presently so they are absolutely at the mercy of their investors (also refered to as stock holders... thats what investors buy, stock in a privately held company) or they won't get anymore money from those investors. They have to do something, settle, create a new model or sometthing to make money, or they will simply go out of business. Keep in mind that even if Napster wins their lawsuit, they have to change something about their current model because they can't make any money at all doing what they are doing now. No business can survive without revenue.
Again with your "anti-trust" rant we see that you have little to no factual knowledge of the subject matter about which you are writing. The Big 5 record labels that are RIAA have existed for half a century without government prodding - and that harkens back to the 50s and 60s when there were literally no indie labels to speak of and they owned every avenue to distribute and publicize music available. If anything, the climate has gotten more competitive over the years, not less.
Actually, all the major labels were recently found to be engaging in illegal price fixing of CDs. Hardly a competitive climate when your so called competitors agree not to under cut your prices and instead illegally collude to keep prices at an artifically high level. Competition exists in markets without price fixing. The CD market was hardly competitive by anyones measure.
--
Python
Python
My understanding of Napster (not having used it), is that each user makes a shared directory, and whatever files they place in it are shared with other users, and whatever they download is downloaded into this directory. The important idea being that each user is in control of what material they are currently sharing with others.
I just don't understand how a couple dozen or even hundreds of Napster users (of the 10e6) could undermine the entire system by "flooding" it with Trojan Horses or Bombs? Maybe Freenet, where the file is copied automatically, but in Napster and Gnutella space, the copies happen as a result of users, who nearly always will review the material and delete it if it's bogus.
Did I miss some important part of their Trojan Horse attack that makes it viable??
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Ok, so I repeated myself. But you know, there's this spectrum, and on one side you have Ross Perot,.. I mean one one side you've got ALL MONEY and on the other side you got FOR THE IDEA... and I was just in awe how much they were leaning towards that left hand side. But hey. If Taco Bell feels good about selling Grade E meat...It's all about the Benjamins.
Rader
>The Internet has profound implications for the notion of "intellectual
>property". Many laws are not at all enforceable anymore, and most
>people cannot convince themselves that there is any harm in freely
>copying information
Exactly. What the RIAA and MPAA and their various supporter seem to have forgotten and is going to learn the hard way is that most laws can't be enforced if you run around calling people theives and pirates, anymore than the RedNecks in the south could stop the civil rights movement in the south by having the cops sic their attack dogs on the protesters.
It's quite simple, actually:
They propose to take a song, and splice inane garbage into the middle of it.
In devious fashion, I've come up with a plan to foil these would-be saboteurs:
I propose that in the middle of that "Charlton Heston" speech in the middle of my Dr. Dre "Slap Dat Bitch Ho" MP3, we place snippets of Metallica!
Not ONLY does it demoralize those who believe Chuck's fiery rhetoric, it also fools Lars! Imagine, hundreds of Metallica sound clips, hidden in Charlton Heston speeches in Back Street Boys songs. Take that, Lars and crew!
Waiting to be sued,
Ronnie
I am all for using the internet as a distribution method for music, however the level at which bandwidth and formats exist right now do not make it the perfect solution many would like to believe. MP3 compression causes too great a degradation in sound quality for audiophillic listeners. Even at high and/or variable bitrates the tonal range is nowhere near CD listened through good headphones or speakers. I would be more apt to purchase music online if this was improved.
I live in Columbus OH. I know Mark, he's a memeber of the "artiste underground" here. I think it's funny. To see this supposed anarchist tacitly defending corpoprate america is really entertaining.
The sad part is that all these aretists that are about to lose money Never make any in the first place. A recording contract gives you money that you give right back to the corporation that gave it to you.
Then they sell your music giving you a tiny fraction of the sales that they keep until the original advance is paid back to them.
Musical artists make thier money from touring and selling tshirts, the only people really being hurt by this are the mega corporte superstars (heheh mettalica) and the record companies.
The other side is that most people I know who use the napster end up buying the cd anyway as they cant't find what they really want or some almost complete song has propagated itself through the entire napster system like a virus.
I hope this made some sense. I just woke up..
I visited www.stopnapster.com; they suggested three commercial sites trying to fill the market for the sale of online music. Since I agree that artists should be able to make money from the online sale of music, I visited all of them, and "randomly" picked a song that I decided I want to buy online ("Wonderful Life", by "Black", which is a fairly well-known song, and has featured on "greatest hits of the millenium" collections.)
Emusic's search feature told me flat out that they have no music by the artist.
I couldn't even find a search feature at LiquidAudio's web page, although one of their content provider's sites had one (www.virginjamcast.com) - 'cept they also had no songs by Black.
And at Kick.com, the only option available was to exchange personal information for their "music companion" software, which as far as I can tell wants to run my entire musical life, informing me of all the latest events, concerts, etc of my favorite artists, while pushing ad's in my face. For f*ck's sake, I just want to buy a single song, not invite kick.com to become an integral part of my daily life.
So much for the options. Back to Napster, I guess ...
The really obvious problem with ANY sort of trojan horse scheme on Napster etc. is that as soon as one person gets the trojan track they will immediately delete it. There is no real opportunity for propogating the trojan horses. This is one of the overlooked values of Napster, etc. - people will only keep the songs they like, since it's so easy to delete a song and disk space certainly isn't free yet. So the only songs available for more than a very short while are those that somebody thinks are worth the disk space.
What this means to you is DO NOT send us email about illegal activities you are planning. This only implicates us and forces us to inform the authorities. Yes, we will do that. We have a moral obligation to report crimes and do not encourage such activities.
Maybe you should look around for a new privacy statement, or at least delete that paragraph from it, being that you often seem to encourage illegal activities when it comes to Napster...
My letter to them:
To: Michael Robinson <contact@STOPNAPSTER.COM>
Subject: Suggestion
From: napster@molina.com.br
Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2000 20:26:40 -0300
Hi. Sorry for e-mailing you, but your website www.stopnapster.com is not allowing comments. So if you are not the person responsible for deciding CD prices, please forward this to the relevant people. Thanks.
I have a suggestion. Why instead of trying to stop Napster (what is a pure waste of time, as if Napster is banned, there will appear other distribution systems, and/or tehnologies), why doesn't RIAA simply lower their prices ? The record companies are fatty and can easily reduce their profit margin. This way, they'll sell more.
No one in their right mind would prefer to get a MP3 from the Internet if they could buy a CD for, say, $4.
When CDs were introduced, some years ago, they were more expensive than a tape. The explanation was that by then CD-recording equipment was expensive and hard to find. Now it's much cheaper than producing a tape. But CD prices didn't lower. Artits profit didn't rise too. This means recording companies are evil and getting all the money.
So, just lower CD prices and there'll be no need to stop napster. People will stop using automatically.
What do you think ?
If you need help setting the new prices, and stuff, you are free to contact me at napster@molina.com.br . TIA.
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Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
Nice flame. Allow me to retort. :)
Did I say Napster was *publicly* traded, or were your hehmoroids itching this afternoon? Regardless of their not being "public", they still have shareholders who are external to the company, such as the VC's.
Regarding to the comparison of the RIAA and Microsoft in "extending", I think you're just fishing with a microscope. Or, you are a really anal person. The gist of what I was saying was they are both abusing their market position to suppress new business models and competition. I don't care that things have improved since the 40s (wow, that's pretty obvious without even mentioning hollywood red scares..)
Regarding the comment about TCP/IP, I can't believe you wasted so many words on misinterpretation. To paraphrase what I said, I CANNOT WAIT until the "airwaves" (be they WHATEVER they are, dammit) are free. When that happens, just maybe the artists will be free as well. Maybe your tastes in music are completely filled by the bland bullshit served on most corporate radio, but I don't accept what is force-fed to me. I'll hunt that music down, even if the effort of doing so is like a day at the Registry (Department of Vehicles, or MS Regedit, take your pick!)
Thanks for pointing out YOU know there's a difference between a protocol, like TCP/IP, and the transport it rides in on, such as wireless. That's not even moderately on topic, but I guess nothing gets by you clever guy...
And the post was moderated up to 3 AFAIK, but who gives a rats ass? My post was on topic, while yours was Flamebait. Add more fiber to your diet.
Scott
Gnute is not the only web front end to Gnutella. See also
Daily Phat, and
Surfy
These have gotta be even easier to use than Napster, so the RIAA won't see any great benefit from buying off Napster.
I really like Daily Phat, cos of the way it gives you three different methods of obtaining the music you're searching for. Firstly its an Amazon referrer, so you get links to the CD on Amazon. Then you get the gnutella search results. Lastly you get the emusic results (for sale MP3s, usually about a $1 a track). Its a neat way of deflecting all the "aiding piracy" criticism.
The press on this subject makes me sick. Napster settling with the RIAA is *BAD*, for us, and the artists.
Does anyone REALLY think the Record Companies/RIAA are trying to KILL Napster? Even if they could do so, another would follow in its place, so the answer is no. Music is going digital, and the carpetbagging middlemen in the music distribution business cannon stop it. In Microsoft terms, the RIAA is playing "Embrace and Extend".
However, if the RIAA can abuse the court systems to force mp3.com and Napster to the table, then they are in a position to negotiate. MP3.com and Napster are corporations with stockholders to answer to... if they are offered partnerships with the RIAA, they'll accept. The trick is for the RIAA to do this without providing evidence that they are colluding and violating Anti-Trust laws.
Napster can offer musicians a way out of indentured slavery. It can change the music industry forever, and free artists from writing MTV-specific music which promotes brands and consumerism. We can get "albums" that were not churned out like some Metallica Load/Re-load episode, to satisfy "contractual obligations".
Furthermore, when wireless TCP/IP goes into EVERY radio, we can if we choose give a big middle finger to the US Gov't and the FCC, and tune into offshore "pirate radio" in such numbers that they will be FORCED into more narrowly defining their roles into guarding the people's bandwidth, rather than auctioning it off for-profit and acting as censors.
MP3.com's already making deals with the RIAA. If we lose Napster, we are handed a setback. The best possible outcome for us is if we support the free music distributers, and if Napster, etc. make deals DIRECTLY with the ARTISTS themselves.
I can stop spamming.....
.sig for another MP3 article. It's kind of old, but finally is on-topic.
Check my
Have a fun day!!!
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+&x
Multiple trojan files would have to be created to be effective, or else people will figure out "the 4126332-byte Eminem song is a trojan", and avoid it. Or people will immediately go to 1:00 and check to see if there's a message (you could even use the "resume" feature to start downloading one minute into the song, and check before you download the whole thing). So they'd have to use different messages in different locations to do this. And if there are multiple trojans made, with messages at different locations, it would be possible to use 2 or 3 of the trojans and reconstruct the entire song from them.
Hey!
Rolls wrote in to tell us about the Tabloids' Web site promoting Napster mischief
To clarify, that's mischief as in trying to disrupt Napster service, i.e. with fake tracks.
I don't have any real opinion on the 'napster: is it good or bad' debate, but I had a look anyway... I had a look at the 'Unsafe Sex' page and either these people don't get programming and Internet security or they are exadurating/lying for shock value.
I want to keep out of this whole debate because I really don't care, but this information is wrong.
Just my $0.02
Michael Tandy
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
They say:
<PREACH target="to_choir">
The prices are that way because, in a sense, they represent monopolistic competitors -- one group's music is not a perfect substitute for another. On top of that, the demand for music is fairly inelastic due to the lack of substitutes, meaning that changes in price don't affect demand much, as demand is relatively fixed.
In other words, because they can, record companies are charging outrageous amounts of money for CDs (and as the "Minimum Advertised Price" issue illustrated, they're using collusive practices to achieve these ends). People can choose to either (a) not listen to the music they desire, or (b) pay through the nose. Demand is inelastic and we end up having only one supplier, and so what happens is that we pay through the nose.
Other solutions such as "listening to the radio" are non-solutions. Radios aren't permitted or aren't effective in many venues (eg. where I work), and certainly don't work on demand. (Play song XYZ now!) Not to mention, many songs are simply never broadcast.
Other distribution channels represent a threat to the current monopolistic state that the record companies are in. The limited monopoly granted by copyright has been transformed into a nearly unlimited monopoly in recent years, and the record companies are fighting tooth and nail to keep that monopoly. I say it just stinks.
</PREACH> --Joe--
Program Intellivision!
I'm sure it's been stated several times here, but I think that this is what the RIAA is scared of the most. Why would anyone pay ~$16 for a one over-marketed, over-played, generic, piece-of-crap song when they can now easily find something more interesting outside the RIAA monopolised mainstream?
The thing that prevents the RIAA from making singles available online is that they know that most of their products/artists, are only good for that one song. I think this is why you can almost never find a CD single of a Top 40 artist. They know that if people could buy singles then people wouldn't buy the album unless it was *gasp* actually good.
But you already knew that.. Preaching to the choir...
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"It looks just like a Telefunken U47"
If Napster 'sells out' to the extent that its usefulness is compromised, other services will step in. The protocol is already implemented in third-party products, and there are even Napster-like third-party directory servers operating. Not to mention other file-sharing paradigms like Gnutella, Freenet, et al. The desire for this service is essentially a force of nature, and will find an outlet regardless of what transpires between RIAA and Napster.
"...the music industry could easily build a closed commercial news distribution service superior to rogue freeware Napster."
This is correct, they certainly have the resources (money/copyrights) to do it.
However, you can't put the word "profitable" in front of "closed" and have it remain true...
alt.mp3.*. Want the latest metallica, go to alt.mp3.metallica. Want the latest Perl Jam? alt.mp3.perljam. Want the latest Live Goat Porn? alt.mp3.livegoatporn.
The usenet store and forward method allows for truly anonymous posting. There is no central company to attack (Much like gnutilla) and there's no way for the poster to tell who's downloading the data.
Moreover, an anonymous poster could establish a GPG key he could use to sign his postings, establish it on a keyserver somewhere, and manage to be an anonymous poster with a reputation. A web of trust will eventually be necessary given the countertactics the industry is currently developing.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Even if miraclously the sharing of mp3 files will be made impossible one day, I'll just steal music the old fashioned way, shoplifting... (But only CD's that I think aren't worth the full price or some new unknown artist -- think of it as "sampling")
:)
Eat shit! A hundred billion flies can't be wrong!
This might help:
ROBINSON, MICHAEL
6114 lasalle ave #357
OAKLAND, CA 94611
May I suggest some of these services:
Send fresh dog turds!
This might help:
ROBINSON, MICHAEL
6114 lasalle ave #357
OAKLAND, CA 94611
May I suggest some of these services:
Send fresh dog turds!
I don't see how the industry could possibly create something competitive... most people are cheap. They will put up with a lot of inconvenience to save a few dollars. And Napster is very little inconvenience, compared to previous alternatives to coughing up retail for a CD.
Napster will be improved upon. Either they will spend some of their VC money on something other than legal fees, or something better will appear and replace it. I don't see what the existing industry has to offer that fans couldn't offer to each other with a little work--better quality files, a good indexing system, info from liner notes? And if artists got involved in the new distribution systems, that doesn't really leave any place for the RIAA members.
The Internet has profound implications for the notion of "intellectual property". Many laws are not at all enforceable anymore, and most people cannot convince themselves that there is any harm in freely copying information meant for mass consumption in the first place. The recording industry will of course fight the changes, but ultimately they cannot stop the tide.
Java: the COBOL of the new millenium.
Napster is not to blame. The RIAA is to blame for this violation of our 17th Amendment rights. Just because the RIAA has vast reserves of cash at its hand to sway our representatives doesn't make its rape of the Constitution right.
http://www.stopnapster.com/artists.html Sean "Puffy" Combs says Napster is blatant "abuse." Well, then I'll stop using Napster right away. But next time someone pisses me off in a bar I'm springing my Glock, cause you know, thats ok.
What if someone set up a system that let each user distribute digital signatures for given combinations of filenames and data? Then each user could distribute a list to help people find real copies of songs, and then sign the entire list. A single malicious user (someone trying to break the trading system) might report that his/her copy of a file matched the correct signature for the file, but the bogus file wouldn't get very far. dissemination of poor-quality copies of songs would also decrease.
Something similar to Advogato.org's "trust metrics" might be useful for deciding whose list of signatures to trust.
Discl: Just thought I'd toss this idea out. I'm not actually knowledgable about digital signatures, and I only skimmed advogato's page and don't know that much about graph theory.
The shareholder is always right.